The King's Reach
“You dare speak to me?” King Rolando’s voice was a whisper in the chamber.
Prestor Thresh considered his options. Words had already been spoken; rescinding them now would be madness.
Speaking again could be death.
“I do.” Prestor was committed. For good or for ill, the King would know his mind.
Rolando had not always been so harsh with his subjects, but twenty years of slipping around schemes to take his power and his head had made the once-young King nervous, and birthed a middle-aged man with a heart full of pulsing anger. War at two of his borders didn’t help matters; Rolando was a man with many problems and very few people to trust.
Once, Thresh had counted himself among them.
“What you propose is madness.” Prestor could see the King’s eyes blaze as he spoke, and his slim hand twitched toward the bell-pull at his left. Prestor was one of the few the King allowed in his presence unguarded, but single tug on the pull would bring five guards running, all with instructions to kill. Capture would not be an outcome he could look forward to; instead, his body would meet cool stone floor, thrilled only by the spilling of his innards across its pitted surface.
“Please!” He cried. “Hear me out, and then pull the bell if you must. Let me finish – you will be no worse for it.”
Rolando considered; Thresh could see his eyes dart quickly back and forth. The man had an open and honest face, hardly a requirement for a King but one that had earned him the respect of his people. His eyes had always twitched, and while he could make hard choices when needed, a shrewd observer could see just how much he struggled.
“Very well, Prestor,” the King said, “but know that you start from a deficit. I would already prefer to see you headless.”
He swallowed hard. The Rolando he had known was gone; all traces of the joyful child had been subsumed by the demands of age, and it seemed the King had learned many hard lessons, some of them too well.
“I was clear the first time, Your Majesty, and I will be clear again. You need to die.” Shock, if nothing else, had caught the King’s attention. Most of his advisors received no more than ten minutes of his time, but Presotr had been in the chamber for over half an hour. It might mean his death, but at least he had the man’s attention.
“Yes, you mentioned that. Please, explain yourself.” There was a hint of the old Rolando, overlaid with a distinct command. If only the man could have been molded, shaped into a true purpose! Thresh had been away too long.
“You are too visible, Your Majesty. Plots abound in your kingdom, many aimed at your head. You must fall to one of them to expose the most obvious of the traitors. Once that is done, the others will snake away into the darkness.” Prestor’s return to the kingdom had been met with open hostility by those who knew he stood for the King, and a few discrete inquiries made it obvious that while Rolando had earned the respect of the common people, the nobles were far less impressed. At least a dozen plots, all funded well enough to succeed, were afoot in the kingdom, and no one had the strength to speak up and inform the King. A number of his closest court members had no desire to see him fall, but feared for their own lives more than they did for the man they supposedly served.
“I am sure you speak the truth,” Rolando said softly, “I too know of many plots to have my life. An exposed and captured traitor is the desire of any Monarch, but I for one would prefer to do it with my own head still attached. Your plan has a significant flaw, I think.”
Prestor took a deep breath. Now was the time. Pulling a stoppered vial from inside his cloak, he tossed it toward the King.
“A gift from the Broken Lands,” he said. Rolando’s father had sent Prestor away when it became clear that he had the young Prince’s ear in matters of state, even more than members of the High Court. The Broken Lands had been an unfortunate posting, one that gave him little opportunity to make use of his skills as a diplomat, but that had allowed him to procure a single, important item.
“Dthiss.” He spoke the name quietly as the King caught the vial, and Thresh could see the man’s face turn pale.
“Are you mad?” The King’s hand went for the bell pull, and Prestor did the only thing he could thing of.
“Rolando, stop!” He hadn’t used the tone for over twenty years, but it had worked when the King was a child.
Rolando’s hand froze a finger’s width from the braided rope.
“Listen to me, Rolando,” he said, moving to kneel beside the King, “Dthiss will kill you almost instantly. But,” he went on as the King recoiled, “you will not stay dead.”
“What? You lie!”
“No! It gives the appearance of death only – not the reality. Together, we can manufacture a death that will give us broad mandate to investigate the nobles.” Even under the rule of the King, many noble houses remained fiercely independent, but such a killing would spark a desire to prove their innocence. “We can root out those who oppose you, and then reveal you to the masses, alive and well. Your kingdom can be cleansed and you can be seen as a martyr to your people, one willing to truly lead instead of merely speak.”
Rolando’s hand dropped, and he cradled the small vial in his lap. “Thresh, I’ve missed you. This world – it’s cold. So cold.”
Reaching forward, Prestor Thresh took the King in a firm embrace. “We will warm it, my friend. We will inform it, mold it to our will. We will show it that your reach is long – bridging even the depths of the grave.”
- D
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